FLAWS OF PERCEPTION

To really understand the nature of reality, we must look through the eyes of the soul.

THERE IS NO life without consciousness - consciousness and life are one and the same. Life is
synonymous with what we call spirit, consciousness, awareness and existence. For the last 300
years people have thought that consciousness was an epiphenomenon of physical matter. This
'reductionist' worldview says that if we can understand the behaviour of molecules then we will
also understand that consciousness is an emergent property; that once molecules attain a certain
degree of complexity in behaviour then from that, somehow, consciousness emerges.

This reductionist worldview can be explained in a very simple biological way: your pancreas
makes pancreatic juice, your gallbladder makes bile, your stomach secretes hydrochloric acid,
and your brain secretes consciousness. So your brain somehow manufactures consciousness in
the same way that your stomach manufactures hydrochloric acid or your pancreas manufactures
pancreatic juice. This reductionist model is used in science and medicine, but it is a very
incomplete model. It is a flawed map of reality.

There are three methods by which we can understand reality. The first is through our senses:
sound, touch, taste, sight and smell. We experience reality through the instruments of
observation: the 'eyes of the flesh'. The second way that we understand reality is through the
instrument that we call the mind: the 'eyes of the mind', metaphorically speaking. If I want to
understand the theory of relativity I have to participate at least to some extent with the
experiments that occurred in the mind of Einstein. If I want to understand quantum physics then
also I have to have some idea of the mathematical concepts that occurred in the minds of
scientists in the last century. If you look at the major revolution of the last century it is quantum
physics and quantum mechanics and if you study the history of the emergence of that science
you will see that this revolution actually occurred in people's minds. The observations came
much later.

With that revolution came new technology. I have this amazing little gadget: it's a telephone with
email and internet access. I could record a lecture on it, take photos or video on it, and send the
information anywhere in the world. The information will go through walls, it will go through
trees, it will bounce off a satellite in space, it will go through traffic jams, it will go through
human bodies, and somebody anywhere in the world, in China or in India, can receive this
information or watch the video.

This technology is based on a very fundamental premise in science: that the essential nature of
the material world is that it is not material. Otherwise we wouldn't have this technology. We are
able to surf the information highway on the internet because what we call the material world is
really not material. This technology is a result of what we call the quantum revolution. It is the
second way of examining reality.

There is a third way of examining reality that goes even deeper. Our sensory apparatus takes us
to a very superficial level: this is a chair, that is a flower, that is a human being; and the quantum
level takes us deeper into the mind of nature, making the world much more miraculous. So the
eyes of the mind take us to a level which is a more wondrous than that seen through the eyes of
the flesh. The third way of knowing reality is through the 'eyes of the soul', which take us much,
much deeper into the nature of existence.

THERE IS A beautiful poem by the English visionary poet Blake:

We are led to believe a lie

When we see with, and not through the eye
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

It's beautiful; but what is Blake saying? Why are we led to believe a lie when we see with the
eye? What Blake is saying is what any student of perception will tell you today: we cannot rely
on sensory observation alone to know the essential nature of reality. For the last 300 years, the
whole basis of science has relied on our observational senses; but our senses are the least reliable
test of what we call reality. My senses tell me that the ground I am sitting on is stationary and yet
we know it is spinning at a dizzying speed, hurtling through space at thousands of miles an hour.
My senses tell me that, from where I am standing, the Earth is flat. Nobody believes that any
more. Even when I look at an object like a flower and perceive its colour or texture, this is not its
essential quality. The eye cells of a honeybee do not perceive the same wavelengths of light that
you and I perceive and so a bee will have a completely different range of experience of the
flower, and will 'see' it in ultraviolet wavelengths. A bat will experience the flower as the echo of
ultrasound. A chameleon's eyeballs swivel on two different axes so we can't even remotely
imagine what a flower looks like to a chameleon!
So what is the essential nature of this flower? The answer depends on who is looking; it also
depends on the instruments of observation. Our nervous systems are our main instruments of
observation, and at a simplistic level our brains respond to neuron activity that translates into a
binary code of electrical charges across cell membranes. So if I could look inside your brain and
see what's happening I would see this vibrating electrical charge shifting from the outside to the
inside of the cell membrane. How that becomes a flower, nobody knows.

Sir Arthur Eddington, a great scientists of the last century, said, "Something unknown is doing
we don't know what." The more we start to understand perception, the more we don't understand
it. Actually, this flower exists only in consciousness, and it exists in a place that is beyond space
and time, and it exists 'as potential' before you observe it. There is no external world as such.

Everything that we call the universe, trees and stars and galaxies - everything that we observe as
the external world - is a translation of bodily processes into binary codes of photons across cell
membranes in neurons. That's why in the Ayurvedic tradition we say we are not in the world; the
world is in us. We don't exist in the world; the world exists in us. We don't exist in the body; the
body exists in us. We don't exist in the mind; the mind exists in us. We curve back within
ourselves and create the mind, the body and the physical world. We manifest it. We are
manufacturing everything: the mind, the body and the total universe. I am not speaking
philosophically or talking about Eastern metaphysics - this is science.

LET'S LOOK AT our senses. My senses tell me first of all that my body is physical, anatomical
and static. But in reality, the body seems anatomical to us through our senses; the body is like a
flowing river, constantly changing. The physical body that you are using to sit on a chair and
read this magazine is not the same physical body that you came into the room with a little while
ago. When you take one deep breath you inhale 1022 atoms from the universe. That's
100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms. It's an astronomical amount of raw material that comes
into your body every time you breathe in. Every time you breathe out, you breathe out 1022
atoms that have their origin in every cell of your body. So, we are all intimately sharing our
organs with each other all the time. I am breathing everything that's inside you and you are
breathing everything that's inside me. We are actually exchanging atoms all the time.

It is possible today to compute the total number of atoms in the atmosphere on planet Earth. It's
possible to compute what you are inhaling and exhaling in one breath. With a little more
calculation, we can show beyond a shadow of doubt that right this moment you have in your
physical body at least a million atoms that were once in the body of Christ, or the Buddha, or
Michelangelo, or Leonardo da Vinci, or Saddam Hussein, or Osama bin Laden, or George Bush.
You have a million atoms right now that have been in the body of every single being that has
existed since the dawn of creation. In just the last three weeks a quadrillion atoms (quadrillion
means ten followed by fifteen zeros) have gone through your body and they have gone through
the body of every other living species on this planet. So think of anything in the ecosystem right
now - think of a tree in Africa, think of a squirrel in Siberia, think of a peasant in China, think of
a taxi-driver in Calcutta, think of a small child in Afghanistan - and you have raw material in
your body that was circulating there only three weeks ago. In less than one year you replace
ninety-eight per cent of all the atoms in your body.
At the atomic level you make a new liver every six weeks; a new skin once every five days; you
replace your skeleton every three months; and you replace the raw material of your DNA every
six weeks - it comes and goes like migratory birds. Your DNA contains the memories of millions
of years of evolutionary time. That's what DNA is: DNA is the metabolism of experience. We
metabolise our experience and we record it as DNA. DNA has metabolised the experience of
your human ancestors, your animal ancestors and your microbial ancestors.

The insulin molecule in your body is the same as the insulin molecule not only in cows and pigs
but in salmon and also in micro-organisms. What is insulin? Insulin is the knowledge of how to
process sugar. That's what it is in the form of a molecule but it is actually knowledge and that
knowledge comes through eons of time. Everything that we call a molecule is actually a physical
expression of experience. So we metabolise experience, we record it in our bodies and then we
transfer it to the next generation. And so our DNA remembers the memories and experiences;
what we in the East call karma.

Karma is the accumulated experience of the past - it takes all that karma: your karma, your
ancestors' karma, all the karma of creation, and then it passes it on - but the actual raw material
of the DNA comes and goes every six weeks like migratory birds. So the carbon, the hydrogen,
the oxygen is replacing itself every six weeks. If you have replaced your entire body down to the
last atom in less than a year, you are certainly not your body. My body which I brought to
England with me last year is gone: it's dead, it doesn't exist in this form any more; but it is
everywhere else. It's circulating in other life forms; my physical body is recycled in the earth, the
water, the air, and the planet is recycling itself incorporating my physical body. So what I call
myself couldn't possibly be my physical body.

In one of his plays, Shakespeare says, "We are such stuff as dreams are made on." Shakespeare
was a great seer. There is an Indian expression that says, "The body is just the place that our
memories and our dreams call 'home' for the time being." We continually replace our bodies, and
we know how we do it. So, if the physical expression is nothing other than memory and dreams,
how do we reinterpret the memory and dream experience into the physical body? How do we
exorcise the ghost of disease, because disease is actually a disordered dream state in
consciousness that is manifesting in our body?

WHAT IF WE could see the body as it really is? What would we see? We would see first of all
that it is made up of atoms, the atoms in turn are made up of subatomic particles, and these
subatomic particles are not material things, but fluctuations of energy and information that are
flickering in and out of an infinite void at the speed of light. If I could see my body as it really is,
through quantum instruments, what I would see is that 99% of my body is empty space and that
1% that appears to be material is also empty space; that the whole thing is made out of nothing.
As I go beyond the appearance of molecules, I enter a subatomic cloud, I go beyond the cloud, I
end up with a handful of nothingness; and then the crucial question that scientists today are
asking is, what is the nature of this emptiness from where we all come? Is it just a void or could
it be the womb of creation? Is it possible that nature goes to exactly the same place to create a
galaxy of stars, a cluster of nebulae, a rain forest, an ecosystem, a human body or a thought?
Do trees, galaxies, our bodies, the furniture and this thought all come from the same place?
Because in the end, as we go beyond the flickering of electromagnetic phenomena, where
photons are flickering in and out, what are they flickering in and out of? There is an emptiness
from which they seem to appear, they hang on for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a
second and then they disappear whence they came. And it seems that everything that we call
form and phenomena, that we call observer and observed, is all coming from the same place,
including our own thoughts.

The world is a discontinuity, and every experience arises because of the discontinuity. So, what
does discontinuity mean? Let me give you an example. If I go to see a movie I see on the screen
a continuous picture, but when I go to the projection room I find out that there is a series of still
frames with little spaces in between. If I move the reel fast enough, I cannot see the 'off': I can
only see the 'on'; so I experience in consciousness a continuity. But the reality is that the movie is
a discontinuity. When I see a television programme, I see an image moving from one part of the
screen to another part of the screen, but nothing actually moves. Only electrons and photons
flash in and out in a certain sequence, and because I cannot see the off, but I can only see the on,
then I experience it as a continuity. Scientists believe that perception is possible because of this
discontinuity. All the form and phenomena of the universe expresses this 'on-ing' and 'off-ing',
and our senses are such that they can perceive the on and not the off. Yet without the off we
would not experience the on.

As you are reading this, for a second, just turn your attention to who is reading. In that split
second of shifting awareness, what you feel is a presence, don't you? As you are reading, you
become aware of who is reading. Well, that presence is your soul. It's not your mind that might
be saying, "Oh, I think I'll have a cup of coffee." There is a presence, and that presence is in the
on/off of your thoughts: there is a thought flickering on and off and in that off there is a presence.
In that presence thoughts come and they go. So a thought emerges, it hangs on for a fraction of a
second, literally, and then it goes. Then of course through association it leads to another thought,
and that comes and that goes. In that presence emotions come and go. In that presence the
perceptions of the world come and go. In that presence the molecules of your body come and go.
In that presence everything that happens comes and goes.

Only the presence remains, and in Eastern traditions we call that presence the ever-present
witnessing awareness, or consciousness. And in Eastern traditions we also say that the window to
that presence is in the space between your thoughts. And that presence is an ever-present
witnessing awareness in which all comes and goes. So when you were a baby your body was
different, your perceptions were different, your thoughts were different, your emotions were
different, but they all happened in the presence that is there right now and was there at that time
as well. When you were a teenager, everything was different, and when you are an old person,
everything is different but the presence remains constant. This is your identity at the soul level in
which everything else is transforming and changing its form and phenomena. If you hang on to
this presence, it might be your ticket to freedom. This presence is the only thing that is real about
you, and if you go a little deeper into this presence you will also recognise, not intellectually,
maybe, but definitely at the level of experience, that this presence is beyond birth and death. That
even birth and death are the on and off in the presence.
BEYOND PERCEPTION

THINK OF A SUNSET. As soon as you see this image there is a binary code of photons coding
for that experience in your brain. Think of a dark room with the flame of a candle. Now if I were
able to look inside your brain, there would be no candle there - just a binary code of photons
flickering on and off. The question is, where was that image before I asked you to think of it?
The point I am trying to make is that when I ask you to envisage a sunset or a candle flame,
before you remember it that information is not in your brain. The information shows up in your
brain as soon as you have the intention to remember. So where was it before that? It existed as
potential in consciousness but it wasn't in your brain.

My memories therefore are not in my brain. This is a very important point because the
reductionist model says our memories are in our brains. Why does it say that? Because when the
brain is damaged people have damaged memories - whether through Alzheimer's disease, or a
comatose state, or through drunkenness. But the argument is fallacious: it's the same thing as
saying my radio set is damaged and no music is coming out, therefore the music must be
manufactured by my radio. The radio doesn't manufacture the music; it only actualises the music.
My television set doesn't manufacture all those people that I see inside the box; it only actualises
them from somewhere else. So, too, your brain is not the source of your thoughts.

Your brain is a quantum instrument that causes the collapse of wave functions that exist as
possibilities before you actualise them as space-time events. So your brain takes possibilities and
actualises them into space-time events. It's a quantum instrument that converts possibility into
actuality. It takes the unmanifest and makes it manifest, both in imagination and also as sensory
experience. What is a space-time event? It is a frozen moment of intention. All perception is the
collapse of wave functions in a sea of possibilities constantly transforming and moving, and my
perception freezes that external reality, but even by the time I have perceived it it has moved on.
It's just a moving phenomenon in the sea of possibilities. So what is in this world of
discontinuity?

All things exist as a sea of infinite possibilities and all exist as pure potential. Potential has no
beginning and no ending. It exists as potential. Science says, first there is matter, then there is
energy and then there is information. What is information? Information is a sea of possibilities
waiting to be asked questions. That's what information is. Is the universe wave-like? Is the
universe particle-like? Well, it depends on your question. If you do an experiment that is wave-
like then it's wave-like. If you do an experiment that is particle-like then it's particle-like, and it's
never both simultaneously. That's the essence of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Whether it is
particle-like or wave-like depends on the question. Before you ask the question - what is it like,
particle-like or wave-like? - it exists as both potentially.

It is your question that compels the universe to make a choice. Before you ask the question the
universe hasn't made a choice. As soon as you make the choice the universe is compelled to
respond. So at the most fundamental levels of nature, the universe is a sea of infinite possibilities
that are compelled to make choices for space-time events once you ask the question. The
universe is a big question mark before it becomes actual.

An interesting phenomenon that scientists are now totally comfortable with is a phenomenon
called 'non-local correlation'. Non-local correlation was something that was accidentally
described by Einstein in his attempt to actually invalidate quantum physics. Einstein was very
uncomfortable with certain aspects of quantum physics. One of them was non-local correlation.
Another was Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. In fact, when Heisenberg went to explain the
uncertainty principle to Einstein, he made that famous comment, "God doesn't play dice with the
universe," because our mechanistic laws say if we know enough about the universe we will be
able to predict everything. In a nutshell, non-local correlation works like this: if you have two
sub-atomic particles, A and B, and they collide, they exchange a little energy and information, so
A becomes A1 and B becomes B1: they are slightly changed, just like when you and I collide we
are slightly changed, we exchange information and energy also, so you are not the same person
quite and I am not the same person quite. At the most fundamental levels, when sub-atomic
particles collide they exchange energy and information; then let's say A1 starts to move to one
end of the universe and B1 moves to the other end of the universe, but for all of eternity they
remain instantly correlated.

Instantly correlated means that if I know what A1 is doing I will be able to tell you what B1 is
doing. If I know where A1 is I will be able to tell you where B1 is. That knowing a quality of
behaviour of A1 I will be able to tell you a quality of behaviour of B1. Now where Einstein
differed was that he said it is just a mathematical correlation and that there is no mystery to this.
Furthermore, the correlation is unmediated, which means there is no mediation of energy from
here to here that tells me that by knowing one I can know what the other is doing. So, it is
unmediated and it is unmitigated - unmitigated means that there is no diminution of the
robustness of the correlation - with distance in space.

Normally, when you employ energy signals or electromagnetic signals the Law of Inverse
Proportions comes into play - so the further you have two objects that are correlated with each
other (like gravity for example), the weaker the signal gets, and it gets weaker in inverse
proportion to the square root of the distance. But unmitigated means there is no diminution in the
robustness of the correlation. It remains the same no matter how far you go. Now distance in
space is also distance in time. When I look at the night sky I might be seeing a star that is fifteen
million light years away, which means that I am looking at something that existed fifteen million
years ago. If it blew itself out five million years ago I won't know that for another five million
years because when I am looking at the night sky I am looking at the past. Distance in space is
also distance in time; but unmitigated means the robustness of the correlation moves outside the
boundaries of space-time: it is instant. So the third property of the correlation is that it is
instantaneous.
Einstein believed this was only a mathematical concept, but then John Bell came along and
proved it beyond doubt. It is now an established fact that there is a fundamental level in nature
where everything is instantly correlated with everything else. This gives us mathematical and
experimental proof of what we could call omniscience or omnipresence or omnipotence - where
everything is correlated, everything is organised, everything is connected instantly with
everything else.

I'll tell you why Einstein was uncomfortable with this: it was because he was thinking in terms of
all phenomena existing in space-time, but what this is describing is a domain that is beyond
space-time and causality, outside the domains of space-time. Now scientists totally acknowledge
that you cannot explain biology without invoking non-local correlation. How does the human
body think thoughts, play a piano, kill germs, remove toxins and gestate a baby all at the same
time? And whilst it's doing all that it correlates every activity with every other activity, all
instantaneously without mediating the activity of your liver cell with your kidney cell, with the
manufacture of the new baby.

Not only that, but your body is tracking the movement of stars whilst it's doing this because the
biological rhythms that you call your body are actually the rhythms of the ecosystem and the
universe. Everything is correlated with everything else, and it's not only correlated with
everything else: it's instantly correlated. There is no time, there's no energy involved because
energy is in space-time. It's without the use of time signals or energy signals: it's instantaneous. It
is the basis of what we call synchronicity. Non-local correlations are the most impressive and
most dominant aspect of nature's activity. It is totally understood mathematically; it is totally
understood in terms of quantum physics - it is totally understood experimentally.

ANOTHER PROPERTY OF discontinuity is a proliferation of uncertainty. The deeper you go

into the discontinuity the more uncertain it becomes. Let's look at Heisenberg's uncertainty
principle: all phenomena are simultaneously wave-like and particle-like until you do the
experiment, and then they are one or the other. If you measure one, then you preclude yourself
from knowing what the other is. So if I measure the position then I preclude myself from
knowing the momentum. If I know it as a particle then I cannot know it as a wave at the same
time. It has nothing to do with the limitations of our experimental methodologies; it has to do
with the laws of nature. It doesn't behave particle-like or wave-like until I ask the question.

Furthermore, when I start to do calculations at this level of nature I have to use irrational
numbers. An irrational number is a number that you cannot conceptualise. So infinity is an
irrational number: you can't conceptualise it. Pi is an irrational number because it has infinite
decimal places. The square root of -31 is an irrational number. I can't imagine what that would be
but I can do calculations. In order to calculate fundamental behaviours of the universe, I have to
use irrational numbers that I cannot conceptualise. And even though the margin of error is very
little, the margin of the error multiplies when I extrapolate from fundamental levels of behaviour
to macroscopic levels of behaviour. So, in fact, the more I examine the levels of existence at the
most fundamental levels, they become more and more and more uncertain. It's like God says to
me, "At this point in time I am not going to reveal my secrets to you. I am going to allow you to
come this far but from now on you have got to trust me, and I am not going to tell you any
more."
Uncertainty is actually the reason for creativity at this level, which is the fourth property of the
quantum domain. It is creative. And it's creative because of the proliferation of uncertainty. If
you are certain about everything, where is the room for creativity? Creativity starts with
uncertainty. If I know everything then that's the end of the story, but if I don't know then there is
room for creativity, and the more I don't know the more room there is for creativity. So at this
level nature's creativity is based on the proliferation of uncertainty. This creativity is quantum in
character.

What does that mean? It has something to do with healing because all healing is biological
creativity. All healing is biological creativity. Nature is constantly creating. Just look outside: all
this creation is happening right now. It didn't happen once upon a time; it is happening at this
moment. At quantum levels photons are collapsing, wave functions are precipitating as space-
time events, and our brains are quantum instruments that are translating the collapse of wave
functions into … a tree. But that tree is actually being born and is dying at the speed of light right
now. God is creating it. If you don't believe in God then a causal non-local quantum mechanical
interrelated field is creating it! But some mystery is creating it and it's doing it right now. The
whole of creation is happening right now. Not only is it happening right now but some emergent
property will emerge which is totally unpredictable as that creativity continues, because
creativity repeats itself, the patterns of collapse are repeated and then suddenly there are quantum
jumps and those quantum jumps are called emergent properties. That means they didn't exist
before and you didn't know what they were going to be before they existed.

Let's look at biological evolution: we see it is punctuated by these discontinuities. Discontinuities

in quantum physics are when a sub-atomic particle moves from one place to another without
going through the space in between. So now it's here and then it's there and it didn't go through
here or there. And also it's instantaneous: as soon as it disappears here it shows up there without
any time-lag. If you have ever watched the American TV programme called Star Trek, you know
that when Captain Kirk says, "Beam me up, Scottie," Scottie presses a button and Kirk
disappears from here and shows up in another galaxy - and there is no time-lag. That's called a
quantum leap in physics. It's happening all the time.

At the beginning of this article, I had you create quantum leaps in imagination. I asked you to
think of a sunset, think of a candle in a dark room - those were quantum leaps in your
imagination. Patterns of photons that were behaving in certain ways switched to behaving in
other ways with no time-lag. Like that, nature 'imagines' through quantum leaps. So the transition
from amphibians to birds is a quantum leap in nature's imagination.

Classical Darwinian evolution would say an amphibian acquired feathers because it wanted to
escape predators by flying - survival of the fittest - but actually acquiring feathers is a biological
disadvantage. It makes the creature more cumbersome. It also has to acquire a new metabolic
rate because the metabolic rate of a flying creature is completely different from the metabolic
rate of an amphibian. It requires a new musculoskeletal system; it requires, of course, wings; it
requires navigational skills. Everything about an amphibian is different from everything about a
bird. So that transition has to be simultaneous; the metabolic rate, the feathers, the
musculoskeletal system: all of that transition has to be simultaneous. Each of these has to be non-
locally correlated with the other and it has to be sudden, otherwise the bird will fall prey to the
predator. It requires the simultaneity of non-local correlated events. Otherwise there is no bird in
evolution.

Similarly, the transition from primates to human beings: here we are sitting as human beings and
there are chimpanzees out there who share 99.999% of the same DNA. But as far as we know,
chimpanzees don't ask themselves who God is and whether they have a soul, or what the nature
of existence is. That took a quantum leap. The creativity of nature is quantum.

THE FINAL POINT is the observer effect. The observer effect means that unless and until the
moment of observation the universe exists only as a possibility. Until you observe it, in other
words without a conscious sentient being, the universe doesn't exist. This is John Wheeler's
contribution. Wheeler was a student of Einstein; he is now 93 years old. He is one of the greatest
giants of physics of the last century. He says that the universe remains ambiguous, a ceaselessly
flowing quantum soup, until a conscious being observes it. The conscious being could be a
honeybee or a chameleon, or it could be you. That without consciousness the universe does not
manufacture itself into physical form.

The points I have discussed above are the qualities of your soul. Why? Because your soul is not a
thing; it is a field of infinite possibilities. Your soul is omniscient, your soul proliferates and
embraces uncertainty in order to create, and your soul is co-creating with God. God remains
unmanifest unless you participate.

What is the definition of a soul? The soul is the observer that interprets and makes choices. If
you want to expand it a little bit, say it interprets through memory and makes choices through
desire. The five soul attributes are

1. Field of infinite possibilities

2. Omniscient (or correlates non-locally)
3. Embraces uncertainty
4. Infinite source of creativity
5. Co-creates with God and co-creates with the mystery

Everyone has an observer; everyone is observing based on memory and interpretation and is
making choices based on desire; and everyone has that common ground which is infinite
possibilities, non-local correlations, uncertainty, procreation and creativity. That's what the soul
is. What is the difference between the soul and the mind? The mind is the process of observation.
The soul is the observer. What is the physical reality including that of the body? It's the object of
observation. You observe through your mind and you observe the body and you observe other
bodies. But remember that other bodies and everything else that you observe are a translation of
bodily processes in your own self by your nervous system. So when I observe you out there,
actually I am observing bodily processes in my mind that I interpret as you. So everything
happens in our body, mind and soul. The observer is the soul, the process is the mind, and the
physical body is the object.